Talk:Traumatic incident reduction

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Contents 1 Origin of Techniques 2 Copyrights 3 Cleanup notes 4 from VfD 5 wikify POV 6 Dr. Figley 7 General Comments on Article 8 Original Research 9 Why a redirect from Metapsychology?

[edit] Origin of Techniques

It seems to me that Metapsychology contains a number of techniques which are identical to those described in Perls, Hefferline and Goodman's well-known textbook Gestalt Therapy (1951). Personally, I think the similarities are striking enough to warrant concern over the failure to reference them. For example, Perls et al. clearly describe a technique of repeated exposure similar to TIR,

"All of us have had numerous experiences [...] where we have suffered mishaps in the past. These old experiences are 'unfinished business' [...] You can begin to finish them by repeatedly re-experiencing them in fantasy. Each time you go through one of these painful episodes you will be able to recover additional details and to tolerate in awareness more and more of the blocked-off emotion which they contain."

They print the description of the exercise verbatim, as given to the students in their study,

"In fantasy relive over and over again, each time trying to recover additional detail, experiences which have carried for you a strong emotional charge. What, for instance, is the most terrifying experience you can recall? Feel it through again, just as it happened. And again. And again. Use the present tense. [...] Relive this repeatedly. And as you do so, notice whether you tend to recall some still earlier experience of the same kind. If so, shift to it and work it through time after time." (Perls et al., Gestalt Therapy, 1951: 102-103)

Perls et al. continue to discuss this technique in more details throughout the chapter. Gerbode's Beyond Psychology (1988) even replicates one of the diagrams from Perls et al., which is used to illustrate the same points in both books. I apologise if this isn't in accord with Wikipedia's procedures, as I'm new to the system. But I thought the people editing this article might want to at least consider these issues for themselves by reference to the primary sources.

--HypnoSynthesis 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyrights

Sorry for the confusion. I offer four arguments in defense.

1. As Chairman of the Public Information Committee for TIRA (the governing board of Metapsychology), I have permission to post this article. See http://www.tir.org/metapsy/contactus.htm Also, my wife is President of TIRA as you can also see there.

2. A WHOIS search will note that TIR.ORG is maintained by me and in fact has been in my house since 1996.

3. I also have verbal permission from the author, Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. with whom I have been friends for 20 years.

4. The ORIGINAL source of this document is http://www.tir.org/metapsy/tirfaq.htm which is under my control

Please reply with the appeals process and a pointer on how to avoid problems in the future. Thank you

Victor R. Volkman

I replied here. Summary: Ok, works for me, sorry for the confusion. --Ben Brockert 23:52, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup notes

This article and its related articles just survived VfD. I've merged the articles on the subject into a single article.

Things it needs:

• More information on the background and history of TIR. Specifically, its origins in Scientology and its relation to the Free Zone. The lack of mention of this looks like a whitewash, even if TIR considers itself to have diverged sufficiently to no longer be very related. (A lot of the stuff in this article still looks like Dianetics with the jargon words changed. And TIR is still listed on clearing.org.) From a third party site [1]: "It’s a stripped down version of the methods used by the Scientology Church, without the cult trappings and involvement. Briefly, using a set formula they have clients relive trauma over and over again until healing occurs. This technique is very effective and fast, usually one or two hours per topic, and has the added benefit that they use GSR meters to verify completion in a clients work ... I speculate that the association with Scientology has created a climate of fear in professionals who would normally embrace this technique."

• Severe NPOVing. It's a real subject that is probably worthy of an article, but the present article reads like original research. Wikipedia is a secondary or tertiary source, not a primary one.

• Sources other than the TIR organisations. There are at least a few.

• Have there been decent criticisms? Scientific testing of TIR's theories? These need noting.

The present article is well over 32KB, but that's in pre-cleanup mode. I suspect quite a lot could be made more concise. - David Gerard 09:46, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] from VfD

Metapsychology, Anamnesis in Traumatic Incident Reduction, Frank A. Gerbode, Traumatic Incident Reduction all on Cleanup/Leftovers, and all appear to be POV original research (at the very least). -- The Anome 23:10, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Actually, they're a quite well-documented schism from Scientology - Gerbode is a trained psychologist and ex-Scientologist trying to turn the stuff to good use. See Free Zone. Should probably be a single article with redirects, though - merge into Traumatic Incident Reduction and redirect (and that article could do with cleanup) David Gerard 23:37, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Consolidate and rewrite (amounts to a blanket delete for all but Frank Gerbode). Could you, David Gerard, do a single overview article with NPOV? Geogre 02:38, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm not an expert, but I'll give it a go! - David Gerard 19:23, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Oh crikey, this is gonna be work. TIR deserves an article, but all these articles are basically the original research cut'n'pasted here with permission - the source texts on the subject, rather than proper articles. Also, TIR doesn't mention Scientology for obvious public relations reasons. I vote keep on the main TIR article and redirect the rest, but it does need some serious NPOVing. I'll do what I can - David Gerard 20:19, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • I've notably been failing to haul arse on this one. I'll try to get to it today (merge and redirect at least kludgily) - David Gerard 09:27, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] wikify POV

I've tagged this article becuse it's blatently puff for the process, as described above. It needs to say who asserts these things, state them in an encylopaedic style, and if relevant list any contra arguments, other significant POVs. Plus the changes listed above. Rich Farmbrough 00:32, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I concur. It rates an article (crikey, an offshoot of Sc*nt*l*gy that actually works at all!), but not quite this one - David Gerard 22:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Same here. It could use a removal of some of the hype and the POV (notably, the author even refers to him or herself), but I agree that interesting for the reason mentioned above. Scientology and psychotherapy are complex and interesting topics on their own, and a methodology that draws on experience with both of them is certainly interesting. Rōnin 18:00, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. Figley

Can you cite the Dr. Figley study? I met with him today at a PTSD symposium on traumatology and he said nothing about TIR. He also does not seem like the type to advocate it. ⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 19:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Re the Figley Study: Here is the citation and a link: Carbonell, J.L. & Figley, C. (1999). A systematic clinical demonstration of promising PTSD treatment approaches. Traumatology, 5(1), Article 4. Available: http://www.fsu.edu/~trauma/promising.html

The problem with it is, that it was not designed as an efficacy study, nor was it designed as a comparison study. Four therapies were studied: EMDR, TFT, NLP/VKD and TIR. Assignment to groups was not random and no significance testing was done, just to name a few problems with it. Thus, if TIR proponents are going to cite this as evidence, they need to clearly note its limitations, as I did in the Wiki article on TFT -- see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Field_Therapy

[edit] General Comments on Article

Commenting on the article in general, it contains a number of unsubstantiated, unreferenced and unsupported assertions about the nature of trauma and memory that are, at best, highly controversial and yet they are presented as fact. They should be referenced and it should be noted that the theory of traumatic amnesia is controversial. There is no empirical evidence to support that recovering memories helps people to recover from trauma. That is a therapy myth unsupported by evidence.

I also agree with David Gerard that the link with Scientology and the Freezone need to be made more explicit. If one makes a direct comparison of the "commands" for the Dianetics procedure (called Routine 3-R) and the TIR script, they are very similar, with only slight changes in the wording. Here is the Scientology reference: HCOB 24 June 1963 Routine 3 Engram Running By Chains Bulletin 3

[edit] Original Research

The first paragraph of the "How and Why..." section ends "...I would like to propose a person-centered explanation." This is clearly original research.

[edit] Why a redirect from Metapsychology?

This article does not describe or particularly relate to the term metapsychology in its near-universal meaning in psychological and psychoanalytic literature as "the underlying conditions of possibility for the formation and existence of human reality as it's experienced by the psyche," see Elliot L. Jurist's review of Richard Boothby's Freud as Philosopher: Metapsychology after Lacan.

Or Laplanche and Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis (1973), entry on Metapsychology, page 249:

"Term invented by Freud to refer to the psychology of which he was the founder when it is view in its most theoretical dimension. Metapsychology constructs an ensemble of conceptual models which are more or less far-removed from empirical reality."

TIR has appropriated a term from the literature of psychoanalysis as a kind of brand-name for a particular (minor) therapeutic modality. The redirect should be removed, it is misleading to someone searching for the common meaning. --Aleph1 00:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)